Book off!

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

I was supposed to go to Kogyo today for their sports festival, but they faxed the school yesterday AND called me last night to tell me that the weather would be hot and I should just go to Koko instead.

I arrived a few minutes before the teachers' meeting and read some Pride and Prejudice. I put my book away during the meeting, even though I can't understand Japaneses and even though many of my coworkers were talking or shuffling papers. I still felt I'd be rude and I stand out enough that I can't risk it. Once again, I have NO IDEA what was said, except for the part when Mama stood up with a laminated sign that had a cell phone in a red circle with a line through it.

I drank a lot of tea. Japanese tea is growing on me. Alan claims I put too much sugar in my tea and throws a fit whenever we used to go to Infinitea, but there's zero sweetener in this tea. It's often green tea, which I believe is caffeinated, but I don't often, if really ever experience a noticeable effect from caffeine.

I spent the morning working on my second lessons for Kogyo and Nishi. I have no idea what the teachers will think of it, but I have a lot of stuff worked out and put some work sheets together. I think it should be interesting, at least, if it works according to plan. It's hard to judge because they basically have told me to teach whatever I want and I haven't had enough time to talk with the students to know what their level is.

Mustache-sensei helped me fill out my travel reimbursement sheet and got that sent off.

Took a nice, leisurely lunch break with Pride and Prejudice. Said hello to the students who come to the teacher's room. There are two sliding wood doors. Students knock, then slide it open, then announce whatever teacher they're looking for. A chorus of that teacher's name goes up if they're not in the immediate area. I'm near a door, so the students often watch me while they wait.

Koko uses a textbook and they want me to use the dialogue, but it's so boring. So, instead of Bob and Magumi, we have Matt and Sora. Matt's in a band, see? Alyssum, I thought of you while making this. I have some pictures of Matt and Sora, especially Matt in his band decorating the work sheet. We'll then have to see how many, if any of my students recognize the Digimon reference. And I didn't even have to change much of the dialogue. I just switched it from Bob as a drummer to Matt as a guitarist, to match the pictures.

I'm also putting a giant pikachu on one of my worksheets as I listed Pikachu as an example of a sentence subject. My students are either going to love me or think that I'm incredibly weird. But I'm okay with that. I knew that was a job risk.

I still haven't heard from Mustache-sensei or Mama about my self-introduction lesson plan.

Speaking of jobs, because of the exchange rate fluctuating, I'm now making $4000 more than I was expected to back in May. Although who knows what it'll be when I leave.

I left at 4:30. I could have stayed later, as there were things I could have done, but none were urgent and I didn't feel like it. I've stayed late so many other nights, that I figure I'll stay late when I want to and that'll forgive me for leaving when my contract ends (4:15) other nights.

After all, I was leaving to do work! I stopped off at Book Off, a used-book chain. One manga series I read in the US in High School was called “MARS.” I happened to remember that the second book starts with a picture of the main character in a Packers jersey. So, I had e-mailed my father and brother and asked them to scan the first page for me, so I could show my students (and justify the Packers' awesomeness) but I realised I could also just go buy the Japanese version. So I did.

I wrote down MARS no. 2 an the author's name on a sticky and with a polite “excuse me” presented it. The staff were quite helpful, consulted each other briefly, then I was lead down to the section and they pulled the book off the shelf for me. She then opened a drawer underneath (like a bureau drawer) and pulled out another copy of the same book to stuff onto the shelf. I paid 105 yen, or about $1.25 for the book.

Back at home, I took a nap, then cooked dinner for HOURS! It turned out delicious, though. It would have been faster if I'd noted that my leftover rice that I was planning to use was much too small for the amount of vegetables I was cooking. So, I was practically done when I had to start more rice.

I ended up cooking broccoli, peppers, onions, and tomatoes in garlic and oil, then tossing them with rice and a soy-sauce sauce. A few blocks of tofu breaded in flour and spices and grilled. Then the entire mixture was covered in scrambled egg with pepper, ginger and garlic spices and everything was cooked (I hope! I must say that I enjoy NOT being in the middle of a huge salmonella egg recall scare). Quite tasty! And there were leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Really, the non-stick frying pan has been a wonder for cooking tofu. It just didn't work in the copper pots.

I need to go grocery shopping.

Also, today was 90210 day.